Had Henry C. Cowles, Paul H. Douglas, and Dorothy R. Buell not had the foresight to help make Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore into a reality, you might be using glass jars made from dune sand to store your homemade pickles and green beans. At times, though, it was an uphill battle.
Ball-brand glass jars were once made with sand from Hoosier Slide at what is now Indiana Dunes National Park / Public Domain
You see, sand – composed of silica – is a major component of glass. It's the primary source of silicon dioxide (SiO2), which is essential for forming the glass structure. Back in 1916, the Ball Brothers of Muncie, Indiana, manufacturers of glass fruit jars, and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company of Kokomo dumped Hoosier Slide into railroad boxcars and hauled it away for glass.
What is, or rather was, Hoosier Slide? It was the largest sand dune on Indiana’s lakeshore, standing some 200 feet (61 meters) tall. According to Wikipedia, 180,000 people visited the site each year from the Chicago area until 1920, which is around the time sand mining activity led to the dune's ultimate disappearance.
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Poets, Ports and Politics – The Long Battle for a New Kind of Park
[Indiana Dunes] joined the national park system only after a lengthy labor and difficult delivery. Interest in a national park on the southern shore of Lake Michigan can be traced back to at least 1899, and according to the park's administrative history, it was the first area considered for addition to the newly-established National Park System by the agency's first director, Stephen T. Mather.
In October 1916, Mather conducted hearings in Chicago to gauge public support for a possible "Sand Dunes National Park." While there, Mather and another early leader of the NPS, Stanley Albright, traveled out to the Dunes, and Albright subsequently submitted a report to the Secretary of the Interior.
To read more about the history of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s creation and later establishment of Indiana Dunes National Park, head over to this page.
A postcard showing Hoosier Slide outside of Michigan City ca. 1907, Indiana Dunes National Park / Public Domain
